


Afterimages

by Duck_Life



Category: Generation X (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Angst, Crucifixion, Friendship, Gen, HOXPOX, Hurt/Comfort, Living on Krakoa, Past Character Death, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21689863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Resurrection is hard.
Relationships: Everett Thomas & Angelo Espinosa
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Afterimages

They're living in a yurt in the same general area as Monet and the twins, taking up space in this beautiful brave new world that Xavier's brought to fruition. Technically Jono lives there too, but he spends so much time with the New Mutants that it's usually just Everett and Angelo. 

They sink into an easy routine. Some days, it feels like they’re back in Snow Valley. Everett still likes sugary cereal. Angelo still wears a cross around his neck and drinks too much coffee. His six extra feet of skin fit better here than they have anywhere else in the world, though. That’s different. 

For the longest time, nobody will tell Everett how Angelo died. He's reluctant to ask Ange himself— feels like a better idea to avoid the topic, considering the way shadows pass sometimes over Ange's face, the way he goes somewhere else sometimes, the way he crawled out of his resurrection pod yelling, "Jubilee, where's Jubilee, don't let them kill Jubilee."

Eventually, Everett gets the story from Jubes herself. Crucified, on the Xavier Institute front lawn. She made it. Ange didn't. 

It's different. Human hatred killed them both, but at least Everett made a conscious decision. He chose to track down that last bomb, chose to put himself in danger if it meant saving the school. He had time— seconds— to change his mind and run. He sacrificed himself. Ange never had that chance. 

Everett starts thinking about religious imagery and sacrifice and Jesus on the cross and how long his best friend was alive, waiting to die on the Xavier Institute lawn, and he thinks too much and he has to lie down with his eyes closed and just breathe. 

Angelo doesn't say a word about his death until the night when his nightmares wake him up howling, and then Everett is there at his side, whispering to him that it's okay, he's okay, Jubilee's okay, everyone's okay. 

" _ God _ ," Angelo says, leaning into Everett and wrapping his arms tight around his friend, clinging to him, long fingers gripping the soft material of Ev's t-shirt. "Ev… Ev… they strung me up. They strung me up like fucking Christmas lights, man."

  
  
  


Sometimes Angelo insists that he needs to go track down Jubilee in the middle of the night. Usually a text or call will satisfy him, but occasionally he has to get up and wander barefoot across the habitat, just to find her and see with his own two eyes that she’s alright. 

“I heard her,” Angelo tells Everett, voice a rasp like he can hardly bear to say it. “I heard her begging. She’d kill me again if she knew I was telling you, but, man, I heard Jubes begging them to let us down. You never heard her beg like that before, Ev. It was… it was like the fire went out.” 

  
  


All the newly resurrected mutants have stories about how they died. They died as X-Men, in the line of fire, fighting back against a world that hates and fears them. Not him. Angelo didn’t sprint into danger to get a bomb away from students the way Everett did. 

Angelo was at a gas station, trying to decide between regular Cheetos and Hot Cheetos while Jubilee pumped gas outside. That’s what they were doing when the Church of Humanity found them. Nothing heroic. Nothing special. Just living. Just fucking existing in the world as mutants, and it got them crucified. 

The thing is that once they start telling each other things, it’s hard to stop. “You know what Paige told me?” Angelo says, staring out at the gray sky slowly turning pink and red. “She told me they couldn’t even bury me with my family. The cemetery wouldn’t allow it, didn’t want… they didn’t want any damn muties in their graves.” 

“Monet said there wasn’t enough of me to bury.”

“Clarice came back.” Angelo’s long fingers are wrapped around a cup of coffee and he can’t stop shaking. “We let her down, man. We should’ve kept looking for her when she… back when, you know. With the Phalanx. We let her down.”

“You know Jubes was a vampire for years?” Everett says. “And everyone’s acting like it was no big deal but I can tell it was definitely a big deal.”

“I thought that if you died and came back you wouldn’t be scared of dying anymore but I’m fuckin’ scared, Ev. I’m scared all the time.”

“I’m worried about how much of me is the real me.”

“Jono won’t have a straightforward conversation with me and it’s driving me crazy.”

“I think Monet’s killed people. She won’t tell me but it’s like… she slips up sometimes. I think she might have killed a lot of people.”

“Did you hear about the thing with the bus?”

“I thought the whole point of Emma teaching us about Dark Phoenix was so we’d know that resurrection isn’t always a good idea.”

“Paige is so lucky. I wish I could peel off all my fucking skin and just be a new person.” 

“What if we came back wrong?” 

Everett tilts his head against Angelo’s shoulder and tries to feel less like a zombie, more like a person. He tries really, really hard. Angelo brings his coffee cup to his mouth and tries just as hard. 


End file.
